Published

Chapter 06 – Beautiful Days

Crosbie as Apollo

In this chapter, Trollope describes Crosbie as Apollo. He enumerates Crosbie’s characteristics that make him like Apollo: “He was handsome, graceful, clever, self-confident, and always cheerful when [Lily] asked him to be cheerful.” Later in the passage, Trollope proclaims that Bell had almost fallen for this new Apollo, after convincing herself that she did not love Dr. Crofts. The identification of Crosbie with Apollo begins in Chapter 2. [KD 2006]

No first shadow of Love’s wing thrown across the pure tablets of her bosom

Trollope in this reference is talking about Lily Dale. This quotation means that Love or Cupid’s wing had not entered her heart. The phrase “tablets of the mind” is found in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. Prometheus says this to Io just before he prophesizes to her about her future adventures. Therefore the tablets of one’s mind is the place where one would keep important information. Trollope changes the tablet’s of the mind to tablet’s of the heart for Lily Dale. [KD 2006]

Sources: Aeshylus, Prometheus Bound 788-789.

Apollo paying homage

In this reference, Trollope says that Apollo or Crosbie transferred his “distant homage” from the older Dale, Bell, to the younger, Lily. [KD 2006]

There is some humor in the image of a god paying homage to a human. [RR 2011]

the Dale girls know Crosbie is an Apollo

Lily Dale again compares Crosbie to Apollo. [KD 2006]

warmed by a generous god

After Amelia and Mrs. Lupex make punch, Johnny Eames is warmed by the “generous god.” This god is most likely Dionysus, the god of wine and intoxication. He is also the god of ritual madness and the god who represented a transformed identity in theatre. After Johnny is warmed, he declares his passion for Amelia Roper. Trollope is showing John in a transformed state, altered by the god of impersonation. [KD 2006]

a god or beast

After John Eames reveals his love to Lily, Trollope says that in that situation a man “shows himself either as a beast or as a god.” We can assume that the gentle John shows himself as a god in a Classical sense. [KD 2006]